Thursday, July 28, 2005

People who accurately use "lilliputian" in a sentence strike me as well read, or at least well educated. People who use "brobdingnagian" in similar fashion, however, strike me as downright rectitudinous. I miss you, sirrah.

Everyone at my new job takes really long luches and Friday afternoons off. The only exception to this rule is when they haven't finished their work for the week. At my last job, it didn't matter how efficient you were or if you were performing to the top of your ability. You still had to put in 8.5 hours a day no matter how mind-numbingly bored and useless you were. This was the thing I hated most about that job.

At this new job, as long as you get your work done you are golden. This attitude does not just flow from my co-workers, but from my boss, the CIO. Curious about my boundaries, I mentioned to him at lunch today that "Nobody seemed to mind that I took off at 3:30 yesterday." He replied "You finished up what you were working on?" Me - "Yep." Him - "Well then."

Monday, July 18, 2005

After a phone call with Royale this weekend I am forced to post one more picture. Specifically, she requested that, since Jason felt it was within his purview to comment on her physical appearance, she should be given the same opportunity. I therefore humbly submit the following:

I am experimenting with configuring the blog and my cell phone to allow me to moblog. The cool thing about this is that I can send any image I snap with my camera phone, or any image sent to me by someone else with a camera phone via multimedia message, to my blog. And I can do it from anywhere, without access to a computer.

In response to Mikey's comment below, yes I do have a job. However this week I'm in training for 8 hours a day, "learning" how to use a tool which I find trivial to grok. The class is moving exactly as fast as the slowest student, and so I (and a number of other people in the class) find themselves with a lot of free time. That's why I'm trying to do a lot of blogging this week, because next week I may be busy.

Anyway the reason I suddenly became interested in moblogging (mom: it stands for mobile blogging, or blogging from a mobile device like my cell phone) is because during one of the periods of waiting for someone else to complete an exercise, I sent Royale what I considered to be a humorous image I took of myself. She responded in kind, and I wanted to share. Hopefully if I get this set up correctly, you will all be able to enjoy.

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

So I was browsing InclinedToCriticize's archives at work today during a dull moment when I came across this post by Carina. Coincidentally I was browsing boingboing's June archives later that day (it was a dull day) and came across this. Naturally I felt it was my duty to bring these star-crossed posts together; now if you'll excuse me I have to go find a 3rd-grader spouting objectivism.

I've decided to be more active in letting you all know what I'm reading. Having whipped through Howl's Moving Castle, which was somewhat different from the movie and a fun, light, fluffy read, I picked up Castle In the Air, the sequel.

As with most of Diana Wynne Jones' sequels, Castle in the Air involves an entirely new cast who, in the course of their adventures, meets up with familiar characters from the first book. Jones' teen fantasy novels are a simple pleasure for me in the same vein as Harry Potter - nothing particularly challenging about reading them, but fun all the same. I read this in about 2 days. Click on it for the amazon review, if you're interested.

One of my coworkers suggested this. I've only just started it, but it's interesting so far. It's by the same guy who wrote up the exploits of the group of MIT students who scammed the vegas casinos for millions in the late 90s; it's about a group of Ivy League grads who made millions on the Nikkei with (presumably) shady trading practices. I'll let you know how it was when I've finished it.

Monday, July 11, 2005

The title of this post is a shout-out to someone that knows who they are, and who I would like to hear from. :D

A couple good things happened recently, not globally but to me personally. First of all, I started catching up on my Strong Bad emails, several of which were quite amusing. I still have many to go before I'm current, so there's something to look forward to, right?

Also KCRW started podcasting pretty much their whole lineup, which means I can listen to The World, Weekend Edition, Morning Becomes Eclectic, and various other tasty public programs on my iPod. While working diligently, of course.

Yesterday the Server was in town so she, J-Lo, Dan From James & The Giant Peach Whose Last Name I Forget Because I'm A Terrible Person, and I went out to Westwood where we proceeded to mass-consume like the consumer whores we truly are. In N' Out, Diddy Reese, Habibi mint hookah, and a couple beers at a local bar made a wonderfully glutonous backdrop for some excellent conversation. Also the bar played a clip from Dumb And Dumber, so really the only thing that could have made it better would have been more Troupies around to enjoy the evening. Erin, hurry up and get out here!

There's something remarkably peaceful about driving down the coast at night, with the windows down and the smell of the ocean wafting across the dashboard. It's very quiet, so that the turn signal's click-clack, click-clack beats in rhythm with your heart and California feels like home.

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

I don't know, it just seems like everything is getting worse. And why the fuck has the "Bono's Stylist Ordered to Return Pants and Hat" story been top billed on google news for 4 days running? Are people that fucking interested in cloth? (No offense, Amber.)

Reasons I am cynical:

Our country has done nothing about the genocide in Darfur because we're committed to fighting the insurgency in Iraq for the next 12 years, by which time North Korean and Iran will have blown up the planet, if the fundamentalist terrorists in Syria haven't done it first. Meanwhile the government is prosecuting AIDS and cancer patients for smoking pot while ignoring crystal meth, which is like a bajillion times more dangerous, and it looks like we're about to get 10 years of conservative majority opinions from the Supreme Court (so long, Roe v. Wade!)

Aside from all that, life is great. Also, update you bastards! Why is it always me who has to start updating regularly before you're all guilted into doing it too? Can't I take a month to get my new life together without all you lazy bums forgetting to entertain me at work?